Bodhidharma (Hakuin), Sonnet #244

For Lucien Stryk

His eyes tell us he grasps nothing he sees.

Nothing like shock, wonder, or puzzlement
(His purpose, to see only by degrees),
His response is a dog's to a new scent.
The more he's enlightened, the more dour,
Saddened by the presumption of a flower,
Disillusioned by the barred owl's power --
Endless patience where the field mice cower.
As he stared into a cave for nine years,
Did he presume to think he saw it all,
What is, what isn't, on a granite wall,
That makes a mockery of monks and seers?
Here he's a presence more paper than ink,
All marrow, nothing more, no sense, no think.

Lucien Stryk was one of my writing teachers
at Northern Illinois University. A fine teacher
and poet, he was very influential in
bringing Zen poetry to the United States 
through his translations and interviews. He
was a good friend and mentor.

Shrike (Niten)

#29

The shrike is called a butcher bird.
He impales insect prey on thorns,
Pinned wriggling, eaten at leisure
(Behavior both practical and lurid),
And a pantry to which he returns
When more toxic morsels have cured.
Niten makes us see him from below.
(Is that an upturned face in the leaves?)
He is lord and maker of the universe,
And a hunched and distracted fellow.
He neither exults at death, nor grieves.
He is what is, for better or for worse.
In that face (see it?), such blindness.
A worm prefers the shrike's kindness.

Winter Landscape (Sesshu)

#9

Black and white, foreground,

Background, horizon and sky—
There is nothing to describe.
No word for it has been found.
Fingers pinch bits of glass,
Mouths blow rings of gas.
Stone spires, numberless grass,
Poised like celebrants at mass.
This is but approximation,
Sounds approaching shape,
Silhouetted imagination,
Not a poem, but its ape.
Inked paper, here, in your hand—
This is what you understand.